


Flirting with Palmistry

by PrincessDesire



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29792973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessDesire/pseuds/PrincessDesire
Summary: Joe gets his fortune told by a very sexy fortune-teller.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 7
Kudos: 127





	Flirting with Palmistry

There’s a sign, turquoise letters on a purple background, painted not printed, that reads “Fortune-Teller” in curly mysterious letters that hover like smoke around a crystal ball. Joe spots it from the vantage of the Mexican food stand where Andy has just asked for a pork tamale. He leans towards her, tipping down his sunglasses. “We should get our fortunes told.”

She grunts. “You don’t actually believe that crap, do you?”

The smell of the cooking meat with its plumes of smoke and marinated spices drowns out the hay for the first time since they’d entered the festival. Petting zoos make for happy children, but Joe much prefers the chili powder, cumin, and peppers to the smell of goat. “I believe it sounds fun.”

“Well, then I predict in your future you’ll be out ten dollars.” Andy gives the cashier the money and her name and they move off to the side, waiting for the order. “Are you sure you don’t want tamales?”

He places a hand on his stomach. “I believe the funnel cake is enough for now.” He had childishly enjoyed dessert first and now the thought of actual food is distasteful. Well, what else are days like this for? The sky is blue, the crowds are cheerful, his wallet is thick with money to burn, and it’s only the first day of a three-day weekend. 

“Well, why don’t you go get your fortune told now while I eat?” she suggests. Her cell phone is in front of her face, no doubt bursting forth with work emails that should wait until Tuesday, but won’t because Andy is an A-type personality and doesn’t know the meaning of the word vacation.

“You really won’t join me?”

She holds up a hand, refusing more coercion on his part. “Really not my thing.” In a lower meaner voice she adds, “I don’t like hucksters that take advantage of naive people.”

“Hucksters? How old are you?” he teases. “Are you worried it will be a flim-flam? That I might get hornswoggled?”

It makes her smile. “Go on. Find out what great future you’re destined for. My future involves tamales.”

He passes by a variety of booths: leather crafts, fragrant soaps with real pressed flowers, and miniature neckties for cats. As he draws closer to the fortune-telling booth, he sees that the table is strewn with assorted magical objects (tarot cards, a crystal ball, fancy-looking knives, and incense holders) and business cards. Then he sees the fortune teller and he forgets where he is and what he’s doing. It’s sexiness amnesia, probably the worst case that Joe has ever had which makes sense given the cause.

A large strong nose, hypnotic icy eyes, and lips that require biting. Then the man smiles and that makes it worse somehow, because one lip corner goes higher than the other, as though it knows a secret that the other half doesn’t, and Joe’s heart twists without even a word being spoken. 

“Greetings. Have you come to me to hear about your future?” The accent has to be fake, exaggerated like the words for effect, to make this little booth with its folding chairs and hand-painted sign seem more mystical. Even if it isn’t real, Joe is enchanted by it, though probably not in the way that the fortune-teller was aiming for. He can’t do much about his reaction to the overly strong Italian lilt. He can’t do much about anything apparently, because instead of answering, he’s just staring. He’s already forgotten what was asked. It wasn’t something about an accent, right?

“Have you come for a psychic reading?” the beautiful man tries again. 

“Yes!” says Joe snapping out of the trance. “Yes, I did. I mean, I have. I’d like my fortune told.”

The fortune-teller smiles again. “For you, I recommend palmistry, though if you’re more comfortable with the cards…” he waves a hand in the direction of a deck of tarot cards. His long purple batik sleeve brushes the tabletop. His fingers are slender, lovely, like a pianist’s. “I have an assortment of decks.”

“Whatever you recommend.” He hopes that the stranger doesn’t want him to shave his head or join a cult because he has a feeling that he’d go along with just about whatever he suggests.

The man next indicates the folding chair in front of him and Joe nervously sits, enjoying the closer distance between them but uncertain about his brain’s ability to handle it. 

“Don’t worry,” the psychic tells him with a pleased quirked grin. “If I see your death, I’ll lie and say I see a promotion.” 

The joke catches him off guard. He laughs. “That is highly unethical.”

“But now you don’t have to be afraid that I’ll tell you the worst news.”

“Only that you’ll see it and not tell me.” 

The banter is good; Joe does feel more at ease. At least, until the seer asks for his hand. It’s a warm day and his hand isn’t sweaty but surely it will become so the moment that this pulse-poundingly sexy man touches it. He should have gone with the tarot cards. He’s pretty certain that the moment that their skin connects, he’ll immolate. He’s afraid of the wrong element though because when the stranger touches his hand, it’s electricity instead. He hasn’t been rubbing his socked feet on carpet, but there’s an actual zap, complete with the tiny little pop noise when they touch. 

“Oh!” cries the fortune teller. “I’m so sorry!”

“No, that must have been me, I guess? That’s strange.” 

With a wink, the man says, “Magical forces are already at work.” 

Oh, Joe believes that. 

“Let’s try again.” He takes Joe’s hand and this time there’s no intervention from Zeus. He holds the back of his hand where the knuckles and hairs are, leaving the palm uncovered and facing up. One long index finger cradles Joe’s wrist for stability. The juxtaposition of their skin colors puts into his head how the rest of their bodies would look when pressed close together. He’s lucky this man is just trying to read his future and not his mind; his body language cues are probably like skywriting at the moment. “Is there anything specific that you would like to know? A question that you have?”

He’s not sure if it’s rude to admit that he knows that the fortune-telling stuff isn’t real. If the carnival tricks actually worked, he’d be asking for lottery numbers and stuff, but since they don’t, he figures that suggesting that would be in bad form. “Uh, well, I hadn’t thought about that. I guess, no? Can you still read without a question in mind?”

The man smiles. “Of course. Your palm will tell me the shape of your life: past, present, and future. First, what is your name?”

“Joe.” His happiness at getting asked a question he can actually answer vanishes immediately after the one syllable is out of his mouth. “I mean, I go by Joe. My name is Yusuf. Does that matter?” When did he become such a bumbling moron? It’s impressive that he’s managed to fuck up giving his own name. He wonders if the seer is used to having that effect on the people around him.

“It would matter if we were exploring your life with numerology but not for this. The question was just for my own knowledge.” The fortune-teller isn’t even smiling, not really, but there’s so much tucked-away smile in his large clear eyes and the muscles of his mouth. Joe wants to spelunk down into the crevices of the man’s face, find the origins of the amusement and bask there. “I am Nicolo, though when I’m not reading palms, I go by Nicky.” 

The name Nicky doesn’t have the same mystical air that the crystal ball and tarot cards and loose-fitting purple clothes try to convey; Joe can see why he would stick with Nicolo when doing this act. He’s flattered to have been given the shorter, more personal name. “It’s nice to meet you, Nicky. Normally I would shake your hand now.” 

Nicky waves Joe’s hand from side to side, a cheeky smile just peeking out from his lips as he does. 

“That’s much better,” says Joe. “Now this is very normal.”

“Your life line is long and solid.” Professionalism enters the psychic’s voice. So, now they’re getting down to it. “Though, here early on is lighter and wavy. You had a childhood illness or injury and it took you a while to recover.”

“I damaged my eardrum when I was five. I couldn’t hear anything out of it for the better of a year.” 

“Was that scary?”

“Maybe at first, but kids are adaptable and I still had the hearing in my right ear.” He doesn’t actually remember much of it, but he’s been told about it plenty by his parents who had been scared witless by their son’s seemingly spontaneous deafness. 

“Since you’ve been an adult, you haven’t had any other major health issues. This will continue for a while yet, but then aging will take its toll.”

That’s a more depressing forecast than he’d expected. Besides that, it’s not a longshot that he will get old and die. He would be grumpy about it if it wasn’t Nicky saying these things and holding his hand, long index finger running along the crease of his palm. “Good to know I have some time…” he jokes.

“It twists, but doesn’t have many breaks. You can be capricious with important matters. You follow your heart with intensity. Your friends know they can rely on you, but they also can’t guess what’s coming up next for your life.”

Joe blinks down at his palm. Does his hand say that? He’s suddenly very very glad that Andy isn’t here because she would love telling Nicky how correct his assessment is, even if she does think that he’s a huckster.   
“This is your head line or your wisdom line. It moves downward which means that you’re creative. You have a good imagination and a talent for something artistic. What’s your medium?” asks Nicky.

Joe shrugs. “I draw, not as often as I should. When I was younger, I thought it would turn into a career but that didn’t happen.”

Nicky smiles. He’s either genuinely interested or a great actor. “What kind of things do you draw?”

“People, mostly. I can’t draw animals. Something about their fur. It always looks as though they’ve got mange.” It’s easy to joke about now when he so rarely picks up his pencils, but it had been head-against-wall frustrating in his youth. He wanted to capture everything around him, cement it someplace where time wouldn’t change or erase it. It frustrated him that he couldn’t memorialize his friends’ pets. 

“And landscapes?”

“Some. Trees are fun to draw, but flowers never look as pretty on paper.”

Nicky hums. His finger slides to a new area. It tickles. “The gap between your head and your heart line shows that you’re a leader, not a follower, and that you look before you leap. You put your all into endeavors that some would consider foolish, but that’s not right. You would rather try and fail than not to try.” 

He’s never thought of himself as a self-conscious man, but right now he’s feeling more like he’s on a therapist’s couch. This man is really good at assessing him, either from the creases of his hand or from reading his body language. It feels a bit unnerving but also exciting. Strangers don’t want to get to know the people around them, not really. They do the grocery store greetings of “Hello. How are you?” but they don’t actually want that question answered. It would horrify the asker if their question was answered with, “I have emotional baggage from childhood and failed relationships and am navigating those as well as I can. Also, I couldn’t find the mozzarella cheese.”

“That seems related to what we saw with the life line. Your emotions play a large role in your decision-making process. You’re impulsive.” 

“That sounds bad.” 

“Not necessarily, but it does make you more likely to step into fortune-telling booths at festivals.”

It’s too unfair that a man this good-looking is also smart and has a good sense of humor. Joe can feel the sweat start to form in his hand. Nicolo, teller of futures, is way out of his league.

“I wish my friend was similarly impulsive. I couldn’t talk her into joining me.”

Nicky considers for a second, tilting his head to the side. “She’ll be here soon, though I don’t think she will allow me to read her.” He has to hand it to the guy, he’s got his schtick down; he seemed truly to believe what he was saying, and not just taking a wild guess. “Of course, if I keep hold of your hand, she will eventually have to come to find you.”  
“Are you allowed to interfere in prophecies like that?” He wouldn’t mind Nicky holding his hand until it dropped off.

“Do you mean will they revoke my license? Probably not. If you had a fate line, it would be here. Don’t look so worried; I already told you that I wouldn’t give you a prediction of death. Fate lines have more to do with what you’re doing with the years of your life than the number of them. Lacking a fate line means that you won’t have just one career path. You’ll try on several things.”

Joe shakes his head. It’s the first thing that the fortune-teller has gotten wrong. “I’ve been at my company for the last thirteen years.”

“What do you do?” 

He hates being asked that. It isn’t that he doesn’t do anything, but it’s so complicated. “It’s not an easy job to explain. A lot of the time I travel to branches within the company and optimize their efficiency. I look for unproductive procedures and employees and replace them with something more useful.”

He’s used to this explanation creating zombies out of his listeners, but Nicky asks, “And when you’re here?”

“I coordinate meetings and institute policy changes. Oh, and I drink too much coffee and gossip with my aide.” 

“Coffee. That is a vice I would never part with. The gossiping… I do that enough in this role.”

“Nile probably considers it part of her job description at this point. She might add it to her resume when she leaves.”

Nicky chuckles. “Make sure to give her a positive recommendation or she may gossip about you.”

“There isn’t a doubt in my mind that she’s already telling everyone everything about me. In fact, that might be why you’re doing so well with this reading.” He looks around him as though trying to spot his aide. “She’s already briefed you.”

“I’ve never met anyone by the name of Nile, but if I do, now I will be sure to ask for your secrets.” His eyes turn back down to Joe’s hand. “As you might expect given your fate line, your sun line… that’s here… expects that you’ll be quite happy with whatever amount of fame your work brings you. You would be just as content being universally unrecognized as you would being a Hollywood celebrity.”

“The money would be better.”

Nicky shakes his head. “You make good money now. That wasn’t your palm that told me that; it was the Rolex.”

Called out, Joe can’t help but move his left wrist away from the other man’s gaze. It is a reliable watch. He can swim with it on and it doesn’t look like those giant technological monstrosities that keep track of your heartbeat and email and who knows what. “Now I wish I could say it was a gift from someone.”

Nicky’s pointed finger slides again, nudging at the side of his hand under his pinky. “Your heart line.” He swipes across its length to where it stops just between his index and middle fingers. “This tells me about your relationships with others. It curves upwards which means that you are good at communicating your feelings. It’s easy for you to create a romantic atmosphere.”

Normally that’s true, and if Joe could keep his hand from sweating, he would love for it to be true now. Nicky pauses, watching his face, and for all his great communication skills, Joe keeps his eyes on his hand. He can’t tell if the psychic is flirting or just reading. 

“The line ends between the mounts of Jupiter and Saturn.” He pokes at the little dips of finger webbing to indicate where he means. “This means that your love is true. There’s an authenticity to your feelings. You don’t pretend with your partners to feel something that you do not and you are unrestrained in your passion.”

This part of the reading feels flattering and he wants to downplay it, but it’s not inaccurate. He’s been heckled by his friends for being a Romeo more times than he can count. Not that it’s doing him any good now. He’s been single for nearly two years. “Does it mention who I’m unrestraining all this passion on?”

He wishes he hadn’t said anything at all with the look that Nicky gives him. He’s not even sure what expression it is, only that there’s a pointedly evaluating nature to it. He feels rather like a mouse being studied by a lazy hawk. “What would you like to know about this person?”

_ Does he have eyes like clear skies on a summer day? _ Joe licks his lips nervously, nibbling a bit on the corner, before asking “Is he a kind man? Does he… is he playful? Does he mind my impulsiveness?”  _ Or my Rolex or my sweaty hands? _

Nicky does the most unexpected thing. He turns their hands over, flipping their positions so that Joe’s hand is on top. With his other hand, he takes a hold of Joe’s index finger and points it to the dead center of his palm. Now, apparently, Joe is the one reading a palm. “A water hand has long fingers and a long palm and has a tendency to run clammy. Those with water hands are known for being compassionate as well as emotionally intuitive.”

Joe, understanding that now Nicky is describing himself, melts.

He moves Joe’s finger along the line he’d identified earlier as a heart line. “A straight heart line indicates stability, evenness, and some shyness, but this here…” he brushes tiny feather-like creases at the beginning of the line, “means passion. You’ve heard the expression still waters run deep?”

Joe nods, a smile splatting across his face despite his best attempts to stop it. He’s been completely wooed, a reversal of his norm but not an unwelcome one.

“Well, that...in combination with this…” Joe’s finger again moves without any of its own effort. “The three branches of the heart line which shows constancy and dedication… that’s a combination for someone willing to put in the effort even if they are not prone to impulsiveness on their own.”

They gaze at each other with a warm sweetness for several moments before they are interrupted by a loud cough. Already anticipating who it was that would break up such a romantic moment, Joe looks up with a glare at Andy.

“Found the booth?”

She raises an eyebrow that peeks like a judgmental yard duty up over the rim of her glasses. “If you’re reading his future, does that mean that he has to pay you?”

Joe releases Nicky’s hand in profound embarrassment and mild annoyance. She wouldn’t know romance if it bit her on her overly firm squat-loving ass. “Finished your lunch? That was quick.”

She shrugs. “It was one tamale not a banquet. So, what’s going on here?”

“I was just telling your friend a bit about himself through palmistry,” says Nicky. He doesn’t seem as busted as Joe feels. It’s a quiet confidence that’s rather endearing.

“Uh-huh. Well, when you finish up, I’ll be over at the leather booth.”

Before she can move away, Nicky tosses out, “I frequently read for skeptics. They can find it an enlightening experience.”

“I’m sure you have many satisfied customers,” she replies. Sometimes Andy can just be mean, usually when she hasn’t eaten, and it’s dismaying now.

In her absence, their flirting feels foolish, until he sees the glint in Nicky’s eye. Like he’s developed some psychic talent himself, he knows why it’s there. “You were right. You couldn’t talk her into staying.”

“Not this time,” he says. 

Joe fishes into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. The large painted sign has the price for the different divination types, so he knows what bill to pull out. He hands it to Nicky and asks, “May I make a prediction?”

“You may.” He doesn’t reach for the money.

“I predict that you’ll have dinner with a passionate impulsive man who thinks he’s incredibly lucky to sit across a table from you. Maybe tomorrow night?”

Nicky snatches up a business card from the many strewn across the folding table. He swaps out the money for the card. “I think you also have the gift of clairvoyance.”

Joe’s future is looking brighter already. 


End file.
